I was Queen of the Nesoi.
“So what’s going to happen?” I asked Smith. “With the murder and Nix? What are we going to do?”
He finally sat down. His legs seemed to collapse beneath him as if he couldn’t find the energy to stand anymore.
This had been my battle for not quite eighteen years.
This had been Smith’s…Zeus’battle for as long as there had been time.
“You’ll have to stand before Hera and I tomorrow morning,” he explained. “Where I will probably pardon you.”
“Probably?” Ryder raised his eyebrows.
A small smile played along Smith’s masculine lips. “Obviously. You’ll be let off with a technicality, of course. You didn’t actually kill Hades, Persephone did. I’ll remind my wife and the rest gathered that you are not capable of killing a god because neither of you are gods. Which isn’t entirely true in Ivy’s case, but at the very least you don’t have access to your godhood until you’re twenty-one. So that should be a nonissue.”
I sat down next to Honor. She curled up into my side when I threw my arm around her thin shoulders. Ryder sat down next to me and for the first time in my life I felt like I belonged somewhere… I felt like I had a family.
The feeling was so profound and unprecedented that while Smith continued to talk, my entire world shifted on its axis and evolved into something new.
“Are you listening?” Smith asked patiently.
I lifted my gaze from the spot on the marble floor I’d been fixated on and met his piercing brown ones. “Yes,” I whispered. “You’ll pardon us.”
“But I’ll ask you to leave,” he continued. “It would only be proper for you to take your absence after a god is dead.”
“Nix will follow me.”
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “My brothers and sisters will be required to stay during the time of mourning. I’ll drag out the funeral proceedings as long as I can. I’ll need to appoint a new god of the Underworld. I’ll be able to stretch that a few days, although everyone will expect me to pick Thanatos. In the meantime, get to your island. Nix can’t reach you there.”
“But how? There’s not exactly a direct flight from here to there.”
“You can take yourself,” Hermes said. “You can always move between Olympus and your home.”
I looked at him helplessly, “I’ve never done it before! I wouldn’t know where to start.”
“Take them, Hermes,” Smith commanded. “Drop them off and then come back. No one will miss you for the few minutes you’ll be gone.”
Hermes didn’t look convinced, but he nodded his consent.
“Ivy,” Smith said sternly, “This time, when you get to your island, stay there.”
“I had planned on it the first time!”
“I know you had good intentions and believe me when I say that I want Poseidon dealt with more than anyone else, but if he manages to… harness your power, we will all pay the price. I’ll take care of him. You can trust me.”
I held his gaze for as long as I could, but I was the one that looked away first. I glanced at Hermes, hoping to gauge his reaction, since he was the one that came for me, but his face was turned away from me.
Unease trickled down my spine and I knew immediately that Hermes did not agree.
“The gigantes are with Poseidon, your majesty,” Hermes reminded him in a meek voice. “He’s planning war.”
“Maybe before I returned, he thought he could unseat Hera. But he won’t dare attack the mountain now that I’ve come back.” Smith sounded so confident, so completely assured that I wanted to believe him.
But I couldn’t.
He knew Nix. He knew that Nix would stop at nothing to get to me or use my power for his own agenda.
“What about Honor?” I asked softly.
